James Downing - Mountain Bike Athlete

Monday, May 23, 2016

The last time I caught up with Brett for an Interview was in
August 2013! That seems like an eternity ago from now. Guns n Roses hadn’t
reformed for Coachella, short cycling socks were still not passe, 29ers were
only really just coming on the scene and the 24hour race scene was still
massive!

It was good to catch up with Brett at Tilleys in 2602 for a brew and discuss the burning issues of late such as kangaroos, coffee and cogs....read on :)

Nice to catch up again
mate. What sort of coffee are you drinking today?

Never have been a big coffee drinker, just considered I didn’t
need to be that energetic in the mornings, plus I’m not sure the people at work
are ready to deal with me that way. I do enjoy a large, one and a half shot
(half a three shot stove top) latte with hand pumped milk and sugar, after the
Sunday morning INDR crew ride. Lately those beans have been coming from two
before ten, Juggernaut expresso blend.

*blank look from me to Brett*

Oh, what do I want to drink now? Just a latte with two sugars
thanks sweetie.

How exactly are you pumping
that milk? Oh nevermind…Okay, I’ll be back in a second. *gets coffees*

Are you still riding a
singlespeed?

Not sure about the implication behind the term ‘still’, you make
it sound like I’m doing something illegal. Single Speeding is still like ‘skate
boarding – is not a crime’. I recently tried out 11 spd on a roadie and no
doubt in a few minutes I’ll get to explain just how ‘well’ that went for me.
I’m still loving single speeding, I still love the immediacy and stupidity of
it, all at the same time, I’m even loving being back on the carbon rigid forks,
what’s not to like!

Seriously dude, mountainbiking
is a really freaking hard sport. Why would you bother making it harder by only
running one gear?

Now Jimmy, you should know better than anyone, you gotta play to
your strengths. So let’s have a quick run-down of mine. Uphill – good, so
therefore riding uphill in a perfect gear and knowing that’s the only gear you
have makes sense. Downhill – no quite so good, so therefore running a smaller
gear and not being able to go too fast has its obvious benefits. So does single
speeding make MTB harder? Depends where you ride and what you ride for.
Basically C-Town is Single Speed Heaven and COGS is a good sign of that. That’s
like asking people why the speed walk, or XC ski on bike paths J

In our original interview
back in the day you said that the optimal single speed gearing was one cog up
front and one in the back. Does that still hold true for today’s progressive
singlespeeder?

I’m not gunna lie to ya, the good ole ‘one on the front and one on
the back’ is the classic old skool single speeders setup. Recently I’ve changed
from standard odd teeth chain rings to even teeth thick/thin chain rings, I’m
enjoying it very much. As for the progressive single speeder, well there are a
few more recent examples. There’s the one that runs a single speed set up on a
duallie, by running a derailleur to take up chain slack and shock movement. But
the most progressive I’ve seen was Big Kev at last year’s SS Nats in Woodend. He
turned up with a 1*9 setup at a SS race! The genius was that the 9 gears on the
back all being the same size. So you could still run a shifter and use your
right thumb to select the perfect single speed gear!

Yeah I #canteven right now, but as
long as it works for you that is all that matters!

Who are your current
sponsors? Are they aware that you wore your wife’s jeans on a podium back in
the day?

To be honest that podium picture exists in a few spots on the web,
so if they wanted to know they could find out easily enough. They could
probably also find pictures of me wearing my wife’s jeans as cut-off shorts in
Woodend last year, I made them look good!

I’m still living this amazing dream of representing companies that
I have a great MTB connection with as a single speeder from C-Town.

That’s awesome mate. It is always a
great thing to ride for companies that you believe in.

Caption this one!

I see that you have
recently stepped up your social media #game. Which platform is your favourite?
Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?

I got onto Instagram last year before 24hr worlds in Cali USA as a
way of trying to share some of what was happening, then I appeared on Facebook
as myself, instead of an alter ego. It’s a tough world to negotiate and
sometimes subtlety can get lost, especially after the brain has been rattled a
bit. I’m mainly using Instagram connected to Facebook and try to catch up with Facebook
when time allows. It was a great way to reconnect with people after my crash in
the 6 weeks I had off. I think my mum was a bit worried about my step up
though.

Do you manage your own
accounts or do you outsource this work?

Still doing all my own stunts, but I am getting help from the
family when required. None of it would have happened without my social media
advisor (read wife) setting it all up and making it happen. My son is getting
to be a dab hand at picture framing and filter options as well.

I do reckon that Lo-Fi is
the best filter on Instagram. It makes everything pop doesn’t it?

What?

*awkward silence*

Ummm….so what are your
thoughts on Snapchat?

I like instantaneous non-permanent photos of unicorns farting
rainbows as much as the next single speeder.

*simultaneous laughter and snorting*

In the parallel universe Brett's Boutique would be doing a roaring trade

Oh man, that was hysterical…far
out…okay so back in February you tackled a small marsupial rolling down Mount
Corin at about 80km/hr. At what point did you think….oh fuck…what’s up Skip?

Actually I don’t think I’ve uttered that at all, it happened a bit
fast for a long line of expletives like that to come out. Basically I’ve been a
bit more like – “I’m still alive and I walked away from it”, figuratively of
course. Plus, I don’t have a memory of it, which in most ways has been a
blessing in disguise.

Were you riding by yourself
or with someone else?

I was out on my last INDR crew Sunday morning ride before I was to
travel to NZ the Friday after for 24hr solo worlds in Rotor Vegas. I thought a
road ride would be a safer way to get in a last effort ride before the taper
for worlds, can’t believe I just used taper in a sentence, sorry. So thankfully
I had 5 other guys with me at the time, which was so fortunate. One to ride and
get some mobile reception to call an ambulance and put a call through to my
wife and others wife’s. One to go up the road and slow down traffic, one to go
down the road and do the same. Which left two guys to try and look after me.
Thank fully the face clotted quickly, but I wasn’t such a great patient and
made it impossible to get me into a recovery position by keeping my legs dead
straight, not that I remember that at all.

Wow, that is super lucky dude.So…give me a rundown of the
damage sustained to your body?

OK so paraphrasing from my discharge report, as I’m missing 4 days
of memory and a bit sketchy on the rest of the details from my 9 days in the
C-Town hospital, till I could prove my name and date of birth to a bunch of
nurses 5 times a day, correctly.

Multiple facial lacerations, left
eye surrounds and right eye brow, right chin and left cheek.

Left forearm and right hand
lacerations, friction burns to left shoulder

The
doctors’ notes at the end, which I only half understand make for difficult reading
about the neck and the brain.

So basically I was ejected from a road bike at speed and had a 1 point
landing on the left side of my head and shoulder at a 30 degree angle, or so,
to the horizontal, but hardly lost any skin? A bit off the left shoulder and a
bit on the knees, but I’ve lost more in very sedate road crashes.

I’ll have to google a few
of those things but they sound pretty full on. Did the nurses hook you up with
any of the ‘good stuff’ ™?

Well apparently the good stuff is good, Hill Billy Heroin is OK as
well, but I was off that before I left the Hospital. Sometimes feeling pain is
good, it lets you know that you are still alive and kicking, and that stuff is still
healing and it’s good to know that.

Did you get to play Doctors
and Nurses at all?

I have a Scandinavian wife, what do you reckon? I got in afternoon
snoozes, which are just as good and sleep ins and bonded with my dad over a
week of late morning walks and coffees. Even got in some great walks with the
wife into town and back for coffees as well, when you’re not allowed to drive
or ride or run, walking becomes a viable exercise.

You sly dog! The burning question that I
am sure that everyone wants to know….Was the beard damaged in the accident at
all?

The beard has taken a bit of abuse in the last year, got shaved
off for some facial surgery last May, then started to make its way back and I had
that little lay down recently in February that also required a little bit of
facial surgery. When I woke up Thursday after the crash, I don’t remember
anything before then, I remember going for a wee and seeing the beard and thinking
‘that beard’s a joke!’. Apparently for the first two days they didn’t wash me
and I had a red beard of my own doing. Then when I went in for 9 hours of
facial surgery they must have cut me close with a pair of scissors, or
clippers, either way it was so bad that the first thing I did when I got home
was clip that dodgy hospital cut into something reasonably even.

Your Ritchey Steel frame
got a bit bent in the crash. Were you able to get it buffed out at all?

Well, I did leave the bike at Monkey Wrench in Hackett for a few
weeks before I could pick it up. Now I know those guys are good mechanics, but
not even in that time could they buff out the metal folding in that frame. I
just assumed it was a write off and mounted it as art to the wall in the bike
shed. It was such a random accident, that I still don’t remember, that it
doesn’t even cause me stress to have it hanging there with my helmet. I have
had a few comments it might be nice to wash the blood off the helmet, but
that’s just a reminder that when things do their job, you walk away fine.

What have you found to be
the hardest thing during the healing\rehab process?

I’ve been so lucky, no real healing or rehab required. Obviously a
lot of stuff needed to be healed and is still healing and I should probably see
a physio about my shoulders and neck, but to be honest I needed to see one
before the accident. I have been told by a physio before that ½ the muscles in
my back do nothing and the other ½ work overtime to compensate. A body that
does nothing but bent over riding and spends the rest of its time bent over at
a desk. I got an eye opener when I had to get cleared by a physio at the
hospital, even with all the damage I did to my body, there were so many other
people dealing with things so much worse than me, I felt like an able bodied
person in a sheltered workshop.

Riding again has been interesting, the neck has made it hard to
check for cars over the shoulder, but that gets better and loosens up more
every week. Trying to not let my conscious mind take over from the good riding
that my sub-conscious mind does. When riding downhill off-road I have a speed
limit that I’m slowly increasing, I just don’t want to crash and hit my head
again. But the best bit was sleeping in!

The doctors said have a
break for 6 weeks. How long were you actually off the bike for?

My release notes from hospital were pretty severe, with a lot of
things I wasn’t allowed to do, like work, fly, drive, ride or run, plus many
other things for 6 weeks. I’m a pretty good patient and thankfully we live in a
place where generally everything I wanted to get to was within walking
distance, i.e. 3km one way. So I actually stayed off the bike for 6 weeks. I
started back on my SS pub bike, it’s got the seat that low that I can put my
feet flat on the earth, when sitting on the seat. So the first ride back on the
race MTB (commuting) was a bit scary, the pub bike has bars above the seat, the
race MTBs are definitely around the other way. I’m reliably informed that my
first ride in Bruce on the MTB was hilarious. Apparently you could see my conscious
mind controlling my body in an unskilful way.

Lucky you live in the 2602
mate. Did you drive your family insane?

Maybe, who knows, they put up with so much on a regular basis
anyway. I got the nickname ‘show bags’ back in my Adelaide days, which I felt
was unearned, a knock on the head has only made that worse, my internal filter
dropped out for a bit, but it is making a welcome come-back, for my wife at
least.

Filters are overrated. Except for
those on Instagram…I’m kidding! Oh crap…speaking of insane…do you talk to yourself a
little bit more now to remind yourself what to do? Jocks on before pants. Socks
on before birkenstocks – that sort of thing ;)

I make more ‘to do’ lists than I did before. I have been doing
sports psychology on myself though, “I turn right great, I’m a great right
turner” just running that with my inner voice. It’s oddly confusing just how
well that works, especially as an engineer. I can eat green beans now, after 34
years of not doing it – that’s a story just on its own.

Wow…that is pretty bizarre

I know, tell me about it. I did try to do something out of order
getting dressed at work last week, but I caught it before it happened, can’t
remember what it was though.

What sort of things did you
get up to during the rehab process?

I’ve had no rehab – crazy I know! I went to the RILU at the
hospital for a day to get checked off. That was a good reminder of just how
fortunate I have been. A good mate lent me a tablet with loads of comics on.
This meant when I got tired in the afternoons I could lay down in bed, rest the
tablet on my guts and just read comics with 1 finger, I loved it, I read and
relaxed at the same time, I did it every afternoon for 6 weeks, it was like
heaven. I took part in this thing that people do to counts steps, called
walking, I didn’t do any counting though, I just went places. I also sat in the
passenger seat of a car and helped teach my wife to drive. The accident
reignited her ‘drive’ to get her license and we are so close at the moment to
that actually happening, which is pretty exciting. So a small car may be in my
near immediate future!

Physical rehab is
relatively easy. But on the mental side of things did you have to go down to
the local sportsgrounds at night to talk to any kangaroos? Did you watch reruns
of Skippy? Have you come to terms with these furry animals yet?

It’s quite a weird thing really. I actually don’t have a fear of
hitting a kangaroo, but I do have a fear of watching someone else hit a
kangaroo. It’s like I can’t picture myself hitting the Kangaroo, but I can
picture someone else watching me hit the kangaroo? I did have a chat with a big
roo recently whilst wearing boxing gloves with my son, I tried to get the wife
to take a photo with the boxing gloves and the roo, but when we got closer and
realised he was about my size it wasn’t quite as funny anymore and just a bit
scary. I am hyper observant of them now and can always see them well before the
others in the bunch do. Then I start to scream out “Human Shield – form the
Human Shield”

Did you hear that a few of
the original members of Guns n Roses got back together and are doing concerts
now? What is your favourite GnR song?

Nah I must have ‘unfortunately’ missed that reunion, though I did
see Axl sitting on a chair and singing with AC/DC recently, did that actually
happen or did my mind just make that crazy shit up?

Yeah it is legit. He broke
his ankle the first night back at the Troubador so he borrowed Dave Grohl’s
chair to sing from for the next few weeks.

Yeah right? My ‘favourite’ Gunnars song would be “You could be
mine” from the T2 soundtrack. I’ve had that song stuck in my head for days
touring alone.

That is the correct answer!
Your daughter took the opportunity to get her ears pierced whilst you were
hopped up on pain medication. What else did the family do to take advantage of
the situation?

Well junior #1 has a very pretty looking haircut, I’d put money on
the wife getting some new shoes, but if they were runners I probably agreed
with that. I seem to remember a new laptop, or do I?

He says that the shoes belong to his wife....#apparently

What is the go with
listening to One Direction in the car? Is Harry your favourite band member?

You gotta have respect for a man that took his shot at Tay Tay for
awhile. Deep down I do think he’s a bit like me. That album was from when they
were still 5, or so my son told me J

Sometimes life just gets exciting and you have to roll with it.

Brett railing the bottom bit of Breakout at Stromlo during the RTE 4 hour

That is totally
understandable. How much weight have you put on from not riding? Is it a bit
harder for people to give you the reacharound ™?

I would have said that I didn’t put too much weight on in the 6
weeks off the bike, but there has been a few tell tales signs that might not have
been the case. When standing up after sitting on the couch at the end of summer
I had these lines across my stomach and chest from the rolls that had developed
out of nowhere! Back at work I pulled on my grey trousers I bought about a year
beforehand. They might have been quite tight in the rump and thigh areas, I
felt a bit like a track rider. Anyway one of the ladies at work laughed that
hard her tears were rolling on the floor and another one I thought was going to
choke as she was eating at the time. Not sure how that’s affecting the RA, only
time will tell that story.

I thought you were looking pretty
cuddly.

Come here. I’ll show you

No, I am okay thanks *laughter* With a pretty substantial
head injury sustained you must be having some major snooze issues as the brain
recovers. How is that all coming along?

For the first time in a long time I was sleeping in till 7:00am,
then having a loo trip, then back to bed and sleeping again till 8:40am,
walking my daughter to the local school, then walking to a café with dad and
having a coffee so I could stay awake for the walk home. I had a great 6 weeks
off, completely relaxed and switched off from work. Now I’m back at work full
time and doing child pick-ups from sport or theatre 4 nights a week. Things are
going well and I feel about 90-95% back to ‘normal’.

This is a loaded question I
know…but will you ever be normal again? Do you want to be normal? What the hell
exactly is ‘normal’….do you know?

Apparently I’m not allowed to compare myself to normal people as
normal people might get upset. But I’m doing pretty good at getting back to
normal old me. The filter is kicking back in again and the urge to yell
obscenities at people for doing dumb things on the bike path is getting less.

OMG, I took the bus 4 times between the 2602 and Woden to make
hospital appearances. I think I’ve done my allotted bus runs for the next 10
years. I got a good shot at the title, but I was embarrassed at how easily I
was beaten into 4th or 5th place on the bus.

You’re a braver man than I
am my friend. I have not caught a bus since 1991. I saw you last week on your
bike heading down south over Commonwealth Avenue. Where do you get your
passport stamped for that trip?

I’m Tasmanian, so I’m used to passing through two dingo fences
when travelling from north to south for family holidays and stuff. Every time
you pass a lake in C-Town it’s a stamp, so I get two stamps travelling to work
these days from the Inner North to Tuggers, in the old days living in Belco it
was a three stamp commute each way.

The struggle is indeed, very real.Are you comfortable riding
on the road or do you mix it up on the bikepaths?

I’m comfortable on the road commuting, I’m not scared of being hit
and I have good side perception and good instincts for car drivers and their
actions from years of commuting. Even so I hit my first car on Northbourne last
year. A left turner in parked traffic. I got a bit sweary, but I was OK. I’m
riding bike paths in the mornings on the way to work these days, and to be
honest that can be a lot scarier than riding on the roads. If we as cyclists
loose access to riding on shared path systems, it won’t be coming as a
surprise. One Morning on the way to work, in the space of a km or so, I got a
hello from the legend that is Blairy, then afterwards I had a guy on my side of
the bike path, riding at me, passing someone else into a blind tunnel, well
played idiot.

It is like a real life
version of Frogger isn’t it? It was great to see you at the GP4 at Stromlo. Is 4 hours the shortest bike race you have done in the last few
years? Did you feel like you were ‘back’?

I copped a fair bit of ribbing when I went to sign up for the 4hr
and not the 7hr, all good natured of course. I’ve done the 3 Ring Circus a
couple of times, that’s more in the ‘bit over 2 hours’ class. Plus, I’m sure
you and I have put the boot into the Back Yamma Big Foot 100 a few times and
finished in under 4 hours, I think my best was 3:50, it was a fun race though.
I’d love to see what time Scott Nicholas would do on that course.

Sandbagging the 4 hour podium

Yeah we smashed it that
year didn’t we? You were running a 42x10 ratio from recollection?

Yeah, it was something like that! At Stromlo, I think on that
first big fire road climb on the start lap at the GP4 when I went past ole Gaz
James and got close enough to heckle Morgs, I definitely felt like I was back
at that moment, then we hit the downhills and I had to let ‘em past again J

How much riding have you
actually done since the accident? At what percentage of awesomeness do you
reckon you are at right now? How long will it take for you to get back to where
you want to be?

I’ve been back commuting now for 6 weeks before the race, so
around 50+ hours on the bike. Plus a few Sunday MTB rides and some Thursday
night MTB rides as well. I’m about 50% of awesomeness. The leg strength is
there, the lungs need to catch back up and the confidence on the downhills
needs to build (a lot). I’m comfy now, the speed will build, I was never that
fast anyway, 6 more months of just getting better at corners and I should be
there.

Right on! That’s awesome! You
didn’t get to race WEMBO this year. Did you cope? Did you think, ‘oh man I
could have totally beaten these chuggers’?

I coped really well actually, I think the hit on the head has made
me a better person. I was really excited for Doris Day, Eddie Mac and The
G-Man. That’s a great top 3 and all rode really well and put in loads of work
beforehand. I was fit though and it was all coming together for me. I flew up
Corin that day (of the crash) with no effort. If I’d crashed being an idiot I
would have been really hard on myself, but it was such an accident that I just
had to accept it all.

I was probably more annoyed that I missed out on the bike film
festival beforehand and hanging out with my brother, his wife and kids, who
were in Rotor Vegas at the same time. To get cheered on by that mad man half
way through the lap would have be amazing!

Classic! What is next on the race\event list?

I’d like to get to more EvoCities this year than just Wagga that I
did last year. Tathra Enduro is back on the cards for this year. I’ve heard
BYBF might be back on. SS Worlds in Woodend and two weeks touring in Japan,
maybe the Scott 24hr if I can learn to descend at Stromlo again.

Good choices. I am looking
forward to the Tathra Enduro again. Will you be back at WEMBO next year?

My daughter is pretty keen on seeing Italy, so is my wife, I’d
like to get to another WEMBO and it might be #24 of SS 24hr races, all started
and finished. Let’s pencil it in shall we?

Suona come un piano. How is
your sock height game these days?

It’s working its way up, new socks are running at a height that is
SS acceptable, not crazy roadie wannabe height, but hey I can’t hipster
anything, that’s why I have a son.

Okay, I’ll pay that. What
are the INDR crew up to these days? Still meeting at Tilleys in 2602 on
Thursday night?

The INDR seems to be building numbers at the moment, still meeting
at the roundabout and it now incorporates a ‘Firsty First Fursday of the Month’
ride. We ride for about 1-1.5 hours and hit a brew pub for a few brews and a
chat. Not as much fun for me at the moment as I go for the non-alcoholic
option.

How is the Kombi going? How
many km does it have on it?

The Kombi is still rockin’ and rollin’ and meets the rule of the
bike racks must be worth more than the car, even without the bikes – thanks to
Yakima Oz. I remember it clocking over 77777 whilst doing kombi shuttle runs on
the TVT at new years.

If the Kombi is rocking, don't bother knocking

How has the MTB community
been during the rehab time? Any mean people half wheeling you on group rides
that you need to call out? I know plenty of places to hide the bodies ;)

Eddie Mac always loves a half wheel on the bike path on the way to
Majura on a Thursday night. The rest of the INDR crew have been sticking to me
on the climbs around the place. And as for the downhills, they wait for me at
all the normal regroup points. However, @ the Commuter Olympics I’ve been
chasing down average roadies on the 36:19 every day.

The MTB community has been amazing, they got Janni and the kids to
and from the hospital every day for 9 days. They rustled up a bike recovery
fund to replace my frame and other broken bits and visited me in hospital and
just made me feel very happy to be able to get back to riding again and just
hang out with guys at night talking about dubious topics.

That is seriously awesome. Any
#protips for the kids out there?

I don’t agree with the
mandatory helmet rule for adults, but I’m a firm believer as an adult that you
should make the decision to wear one. Helmets that fit and hold firm without
the chin strap done up is important. Not all helmets fit all heads, try ‘em all
on.

Be nice to your wife, you never know when you’ll have to rely on
her for everything. Ride with mates and make mates to train with, for so many
reasons. Always be nice to your mum, or you’ll hear about it!

Very good points there
mate. Do you have any shoutouts for people that have helped you out since the
accident?

No 1 goes to the INDR crew that I was with that day. It’s been a
bit of a double edged sword for me. I feel bad for putting those guys through
something they should never have had to deal with. But at the same time I’m
very thankful that I was with such an amazing bunch of guys that had my best
interests at heart at a time when I needed it most.

Then obviously my wife and kids who have gone through more than I
will ever know as well.

Finally, the amazing community that we have built here in C-Town,
from riding, running and schools. It all came together to support us when we
needed it most, I can’t express how amazing that felt and how honoured I feel
to be friends with these people.

A final thank you to all those people that contacted me via any form,
either in person at the hospital or in electronic form over the interweb, those
contacts kept me grounded and made getting things together in my mind easier.

Okay mate, thanks for
catching up again. I’ll see you on Tuesday morning for commuter Olympics once
again!

About Me

Bikes - that pretty much sums it up. I have been racing mountain bikes since 1989. This was back when you had one bike for all disciplines, XC, uphill, downhill and trials. As a junior I was ranked 5th and 3rd in Australia for XC and DH respectively. Back then there was no Under 23 class, and it was straight into the Elite class, where I managed to finish the first year ranked 10th in the country. During and after finishing my study I raced downhill as this required less fitness to do. I also played ice hockey in this time. After a good stint at downhill I raced A-Pro BMX for about 4 years. Following a while of playing golf and getting fat and unfit, I dusted off the mountain bike, lost 20kgs and got some fitness back on.